Friday, August 17, 2007

47 percent of Americans now think we’re making progress in Iraq, despite the best effort by our major news media organizations to ignore this, to bury it, to cast it in the worst possible light.

This is before our top generals have had the opportunity to address Congress and the nation. This is after repeated efforts by Congress and presidential candidates to portray Iraq as a disaster we must abandon at allow costs, though it very likely would mean we bear witness to genocide and wear a national stain of shame and cowardice in perpetuity.

I'm not sure the poll is quite as encouraging as Crittenden paints it -- although there clearly are upbeat aspects. People oppose the war by a margin of 64-33. Give yourself a pat on the back if you note that the poll is among 'adults.' To get the opinion of actual voters you probably have to skew each number 6-10 points in the direction of the President. Furthermore, there's more or less an even split on the question of whether we're making progress: 49-47 against.

The other potential reason for optimism is the figure of 28 percent who say they're more likely to support the war if Petraeus's report is positive. There's probably significant overlap in that group with the 33 percent who say they support the war, but it's still something.